The first task is to identify who your main contacts will be across your organisation, who will help support your skills assessment activity. Experience shows that it is helpful to gain support from the following key business areas:

•Technology & BIM

•HR and Learning & Development

•Management

Goals – Measuring your Success

Think about your goals. What do you want to achieve from your assessment program? Is it better visibility of training needs? Is it a benchmark for minimum performance? Is it a team by team breakdown? Do you want to compare different offices? Or different countries? What are the most important assessment topics for your organisation? Do you want to make the assessments optional or mandatory? (Historical evidence suggests that it will help your % completion rates if there is a clear message from management, that this is a mandatory exercise).

How will you measure your success? What training resources do you have access to (in-house or 3rd party)? Do you have a formal training partner? Do you have access to E-Learning material? Do you have a LMS or HR database? Do you have a company Intranet?

Your Account Structure

Think about your KS account hierarchy and any additional administrators who will be responsible for coordinating assessments for their teams or offices.

For example, you can administer your assessments from a single account, or you can set up multiple accounts, representing different offices or business groups, within your organisation.

You can decide which admins will have ‘global’ access to your assessment data and which will have more restricted admin permissions.

Admin Training & Support

Schedule some web trainings for your KS admins. There are a range of help guides available for using the KS tools, which will help you and your team quickly get up to speed.

It is helpful to schedule a getting started webinar, to walk through the system, answer any questions and share some ideas on good practice for successfully managing your assessment program. The KS team will be available to help you, as you get up and running.

Library Content

Think about your assessment library. Do you want to include any custom content, or simply use the KS library unchanged? Most firms tend to use the material ‘off the shelf’, at least to begin. Over time, as you become more familiar with the library questions, you’ll likely make some changes and add your own material.

Communicating Your Plans

Think about how you wish to communicate your plans to your teams. Good communication is essential in explaining to your users what you want to achieve. Review the KS guides on managing your assessment program, together with the user Q&A information and video.

How much feedback do you want your users to see at the end of their assessment? Do you want to include coaching notes or links to learning? Do you want to assess new hires at interview?

Review Your Progress

One month review; schedule an interim update call with KS, to make sure everything is on track. It’s still early days, so it sometimes helps to share any technical issues or queries you may have at this stage.

Sending Your Invites

Send out your invites and commence your assessment program. Monitor progress and chase up any missed appointments. The KS team will be on hand to assist with anysupport issues you encounter.

Analyzing Your Results

Post-assessment review; schedule an update call with KS, to discuss progress and analyze your results in detail. Look at options for charting and reporting your data. Discuss skills gaps and training needs. Will you involve a training partner at this stage?